hello everyone! today i am going to be talking about warcross by Marie Lu. i gave this book 2/5 stars. i honestly didn’t like this book, like i really wish i did because i know a lot of people love it, but i honestly just fell short for me and i didn’t understand half of the game and technology part away, which isn’t surprising.
trigger warning- kidnapping, death of a parent, violence, child abuse, dementia, medical trauma, addition, death.
honestly, i didn’t really care about the whole plot about Emika’s mother being absent and then her father being dead. and i mean, i feel like it was such a basic plot in YA books, that i literally didn’t care about in here. and i feel like we were supposed to feel bad for her, since her parents are gone. but, i feel like there wasn’t enough plot about them for me to actually feel sad for her or anything.
and i also feel like it had this whole poor orphan girl is now the chosen one kind plot. and also like she is changed into this a list celebrity overnight. which, i borderline found to be unrealistic, since it’s not like you can hack into a game and then have the biggest fandom and have all of these paparazzi go to her apartment and stalk her. and i’m not saying it can’t happen, but i just feel like someone hacking a game isn’t everyone’s highest priority.
with that being said, i feel like a good portion of this book we get told over and over again that she’s poor and that she didn’t have the best upbringing since she didn’t have a ton of money. which is fine and cool. but, then they’d make this stubble hints that she learnt to code when she was a kid, which i’ll talk about next. and i’m not saying that you can’t know how to code when you were poor, but they made it seem like they didn’t have a laptop or anything, so that just confused me.
also, i also feel like we never actually got told where and how she learnt to code and hack. like, i feel like it was such a big moment in this book, since i mean, coding was the main plot of this book and everyone can probably tell. so, i don’t know why they didn’t explain more for where she learnt it and why she learnt it and everything.
honestly, also the romance was a mess. like, it had that whole, poor girl that falls for her idol. which, always is never good since there is always a balance of power. so, it kind of just made me borderline uncomfortable. and also that he was kind of using her so he could become powerful and i really just did not like it. and i feel like the romance would have worked so much better if they didn’t have the whole balance of power that they had going on. and i also feel like they both just don’t work together, like i feel like his powerful and rich were she is more young and naïve, but that might just be me.
and i feel like the romance was just not developed good enough. like, we were supposed to believe that it was this good and cute romance, when it really didn’t work. and i mean, it could have worked, if Lu spent more time developing that and showing the feelings of our two characters, it could have, and probably would’ve worked and i wouldn’t be here saying it was bad.
and it might have been because i don’t see an emotional connect between the two of them. like, i feel like they would either talk about their childhood trauma to each other, or they were making out. which, i do think was good that we did get to see his trauma, since i think it showed more layers to him. but, i still feel like there was no connection and they had to many walls up, to have this relationship work.
and i’ve also seen a couple different things about Emika’s age. like, some people say she’s an adult, but i thought she was a teenager cause there was this whole part about how she couldn’t work there till she was 18, meaning she is underage, but she gets with this man that is is his twenties. which, i’m not sure how old both parties are, but i think she’s underage and Hideo has to be over 18 because he was 17ish when he created his game i believe.
and i also feel like Hideo was also just kind of a basic character and love interest. like, i feel like he had all of those basic traits that most of the YA book male love interests have, which can be a bad thing or a good thing depending on how you look at it i guess. but, i feel like he was kind of manipulative to Emika since i feel like he used her way to much, and it was just so shitty. so, i don’t really know why a lot of people saw in him.
i also just didn’t care for the world it took place in. like, i feel like it could have been cool, but i do think there was so much unexplained that it just made everything a mess. like, it took place in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t Brooklyn since it was this whole fantastical Brooklyn. and i feel like the world needed to be explained more, like if it was the real world with more technology in the future or if it was straight up a different world / universe, since it would make so much more sense. and i personally believe it took place in the future, so that’s why it had so much more technology, but i still don’t know because i don’t think it even really said.
anyway, that is all for today! i honestly wished i liked this book since i know a lot of people really like this book and author. but, i’ll probably try another one of her books in the future, since i hear everyone really likes that serious.
r.bookish 